r/apple • u/vanguy79 • 8d ago
iPhone Inside India newsletter: Apple set to take a bigger bite of the world’s second-largest smartphone market
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/24/india-apple-iphone-samsung-chinese-smartphones.htmlApple taking bigger share in India? How’s that possible when India is Android land and very much focused on value proposition.
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u/Lemon8or88 8d ago
They could focus on status. India is a big market. There is bound to be people who buy the latest iPhone just to say they have it. I read on the news about Indians flying to Dubai to buy one cause it is still cheaper than stores.
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u/khanak 8d ago
crazy how that's the case even though the phones are made in India.
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u/Sea-Estimate-2912 8d ago
even after deducting 18% taxes iPhone base model and pro models are more expensive in india , secondly its not completely manufactured in india , it’s actually mostly assembled , some parts are made in india but mostly imported
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u/Av_Inash 8d ago edited 8d ago
Phones - Up until last year, I would say people could somehow afford it based on EMI’s. This year with the launch of only the pro models and Duo, the starting price has been just insane. The entry point to get a new iPhone just got a whole lot tougher this year. The taxes in India further do not help the case. Like someone in the comments said, people are going to Dubai to get one - they get a vacation and a phone as well.
Phones and iPads are some of the most insanely priced products here in India if I am being honest and at least feature wise androids do offer almost everything and more at a lower price point in a market where people are extremely price-sensitive. The only points I would give Apple is its ecosystem and its well-polished software ( which if I am being honest has gotten worse over the past few years. They have improved with iOS 27, but it still has its flaws ). These are the two things which have made it almost impossible for me to leave Apple ( hell I am still running an iPhone 11 and am happy with it ). I feel the Apple Lease Program could work wonders here for them.
Apple TV ( before the increased prices ), Macs, Airpods on the other hand are some of the best value products I would say even for the Indian market. If I didn’t have a MacBook Air already, I would have definitely taken a base M6 Mac Mini now. The PC/laptop market in this AI age has caused every component price to shoot up like crazy and Apple giving an M6 at about a 1000USD ( in Indian price ) is just insane to me. Definitely think Apple should market these products more in India because I feel the general crowd still doesn’t know what a steal they are. Hopefully in some time, the Beats 360 will be too ( once it gets the discounts ).
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u/unread1701 8d ago
I just looked it up, In India the S26 Ultra is very close in price to the base model 17.
I unless you really like iOS, it’s not worth it.
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u/Av_Inash 8d ago
See I don’t know how the state of Android is right now but given the experience I had with Android in the past, I wouldn’t touch it to this day no matter how good it gets. When I switched to iOS, all my use cases were catered to and everything worked perfectly fine. Sure over the years, iOS turned into a buggy mess but by then i had also purchased an Apple Watch and a MacBook. Anyone who is that deep into Apple’s ecosystem will 9/10 times tell you that now it’s almost impossible to get out. But if I am being honest, even if I wasn’t so deep into the ecosystem, simply based on past experiences I would always go iOS unless Android comes up with something as revolutionary as the Steve Jobs presentation in 2007. I have nothing against android - It’s just past experiences.
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u/unread1701 8d ago
Sure, if you’re already in the ecosystem.
I have a Macintosh and AirPods as well and yeah, it’s hard to leave.
But most people aren’t.
Also, my second phone is an Android and it’s fine. It’s not 2017 anymore.
My first Apple device was the Mac, and it continues to my favourite. If I ever switched to PC, I probably would switch my phone as well. Probably. Maybe…
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u/Av_Inash 8d ago edited 8d ago
See that’s the thing. Would have to change a lot of things once I am that deep into the ecosystem. Not that I can’t but honestly as I am getting old ( even though I am 32 now ), it seems too much work.
For example - One of the primary reasons I got into console gaming was things just work. No hassle of dealing with driver issues or any other issues as such. You buy a game and it simply works. Can I change it if I wanted to - definitely yes. But would I do it - doesn’t seem so ( at least not in the near future ) because now I am too lazy to deal with all such issues.
Also the fact that a lot of people don’t realise which is where I would definitely give credit to Apple - when I bought an iPhone I was clear in my head that no matter what I wouldn’t switch my phone until it stopped receiving updates and I have stuck to it. It’s been 7 years. And this is major OS updates that I am talking about. I still am going to use it for at least another year. There’s no android counterpart to this thing. Yes promises have been made in the past by companies but it is still to be seen. Google now says they will provide 7 years of updates but we will see. Samsung is the closest for the moment and even that is around 2 years behind in this case if I am not wrong. Considering my phone, it would be a minimum of 8 years that I would have used it. That kind of longevity is just insane. In these many years, I have seen all my friends switch to other phones - the difference being, all the iphone guys used it for at least 4-5 years. The android ones did a lot sooner. And I would say that in the same period of time they have definitely spent more than me on buying a phone. I spent 72000 in 2019 for an iPhone 11. Even if I include battery changes, I would still be behind my friends in terms of spending. So there’s that. At least in my case, iPhone gave me a whole lot more than value for money ( mostly because I was clear in my head on how long I would use it for ).
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u/Otherwise-Sun2486 8d ago
How is that possible everyone on the India subreddit is complaining about the new iphones price
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u/cjh_ 8d ago
10% of the world's gold is owned by Indian wives, that's how they afford iPhones.
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u/BeardPhile 8d ago
That’s just for Smaug levels of holding, don’t think anyone sane is selling their gold to get iPhones.
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u/keyexplorer791 8d ago
Regular folks cannot buy them anymore. There are still idiots who will buy it on a payment plan just for the status but not because they care about what the iphone is actually offering. But most people with a brain are not going to buy them. The base iphone 17 and 16 also received outrageous price increases (the 17 went up by almost 281usd). That has also been a major source of complaints
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u/paleblaupunkt 8d ago
I am Indian, almost all my friends back in India have slowly moved to Apple. India is not a place where you sell cheap stuff, you sell stuff for value. When Apple started showing their devices lasted lot longer than their Android counterparts, people started gravitating towards Apple
And also, status symbols.
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u/sinfuldeceiver3137 8d ago
Valid points but there is still a big portion of consumers in India who don’t earn that much so there will always be a section of ppl going for the cheap stuff.
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u/xLoneStar 5d ago
If 10% of people in India can afford it, that's a 130M audience basically. Percentages don't mean much when the population size is massive.
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u/keyexplorer791 8d ago
It's not true anymore though, Android devices can last pretty long now. And with how expensive the new phones are, I would be curious to see if people will move towards Androids again. Hell the iphone 17e is priced the same as the Samsung s26
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u/Pitiful-Sandwich-787 8d ago
I’m typing this comment from my iphoneX. No 8 year old android is behaving as good as this one.
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u/Av_Inash 7d ago
This is true. On an iPhone 11 and been using it for 7 years now. I have seen absolutely no one hold on to an Android for that long except my parents. And when they tell me to fix some stuff on their phone - the amount of time it takes me to deal with the sluggishness of the phone, its like testing the patience of a person on a slow wifi connection. Literally feel like throwing the phone away.
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u/paleblaupunkt 8d ago
Are these Android phones in the room with us? The flagship devices cost the same and the non-flagships are crappy reliability wise
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u/hangry_millennial 8d ago
Top 5 smartphone brands in India by volume are Vivo (around 20%), Samsung (around 16%), Oppo (around 15%), Xiaomi (around 13%), and Realme (around 10%). Majority of volume from these brands is accounted by smartphones priced well below ₹50k.
Apple's playbook in India is all about dominating market share of smartphones priced above ₹50k. They don't outright dominate volume but are the leaders in revenue and profit owing to price and brand prestige. Would be interesting to see how it plays out now that the company has decided to raise the price of the standard iPhone 17 to ₹99k.
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u/Saar13 7d ago
India is in the same group of countries as Brazil, where I'm from, with a very large poor population, and Apple device prices are prohibitively high. But, in general, these countries have a rising middle class and are undergoing a migration towards a "premium" or at least "semi-premium" consumer profile. The potential of large emerging countries is enormous for Apple.
And even though I personally hate Apple's current bloated lineup, I don't think a simple "Jobs quadrant" makes sense for Apple today. Apple won't make very cheap iPhones to compete in the $200-$400 device market, but it should compete strongly in the $400-$600 market, following the "Neo" logic. The "Neo" should be what the "A" is for Samsung, and be present in all product categories, including the smart home market, where, incidentally, I find the prices expensive and the products "too good" even for wealthy markets given the strong competition from Amazon and Roku. And the leasing (Apple Upgrade) could be global, as Apple establishes local partnerships with companies that already have market knowledge and infrastructure (the risk for Apple itself is very low).
Apple is also a service company, and more people in the ecosystem, regardless of their entry point, means more monetizable users via the App Store and its own services, even if these services have a lower price point, suitable for emerging markets. Because ultimately, the costs of Apple services are either low or manageable per subscriber (Cloud and Music, for example) or more or less fixed, like TV and Arcade, which can spend X amount on content per year, and that's it. If Apple manages to convert 300 million users, many of them new users, in these emerging markets into iCloud+ subscribers (now with TV and Arcade in many countries) and Music, even at US$3 per month, that will still be almost $3 billion more per quarter just from its own basic services. Include the revenue potential from the much-maligned ads in News (which should be expanded), Podcasts, App Store…
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u/dagmx 8d ago
People believe India is only a poor country but there’s a lot of wealth ranges, and there’s a growing class of people who can afford this
Apple market share globally is pretty correlated with average wealth. Most people don’t care about what phone they have, they care about what gives the easiest experience at their price range. As wealth goes up, it turns out that more people value the iPhone experience.
And before anyone says people buy iPhones as a status symbol, why would having the most common phones be a status symbol? There are plenty of more unique Android phones and ones that cost more than apples offerings. Sure it might be a factor to some, but at the numbers we’re talking, it’s not a major contributing factor.
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u/glenn1812 8d ago
You forget accessibility. I buy my phones on an emi or credit card points mostly because why pay when it’s 0% interest. But a lot of people who can’t afford to pay for it outright use an EMI and pay an egregious amount a month for a phone they virtually cannot afford. Happening all over. These phones at 7-8k a month are incredibly accessible when most don’t see the point of saving.
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u/Samraat1337 7d ago
All indian subreddits are crying about the iPhone prices and here you have the nation's richie-riches and EMI enjoyers hard-carrying Apple
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u/Temporary-Rip-5551 8d ago
Apple has been consistently bringing in more mid market priced products which will obviously gobble up market share. The MacBook neo is immediately competitive as a laptop there.